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Monthly Archives for June 2012

Alex loves comic books. And I love that he loves comic books. (He often writes about them here.) So this project is mainly an attempt to create a room that Alex gets excited about. The way I get excited about Anthropologie curtains and antique lamps.

But first, grab your cape and take a little trip back in time with me. Remember this?

This looks like a job for Superman! (You can read the post about that hot mess here.) Well, although it’s been cleaned out for a while, we finally got around to painting it over Memorial Day. A lovely shade of gray.

Patched walls and a coat of paint did wonders. Alex also used his super husband powers to rip down those vertical blinds and throw them into kingdom come.

So now we can fast forward to yesterday, when Alex and I took a trip to the comic book store. All back issues were 50% off!!!! Holy sale, Batman!!!!

It took a bit of digging (not that Alex minded) and we came home with 8 frameable classic character covers for $14. And some other stuff, but that’s beside the point.

The frames I found were nothing special, but I decided to go for quantity over quality. Alex had the brilliant idea to just frame the whole comic. So I did. And I loved the 3D look!

Hanging these babies was no easy task, but they were no match for my decorating will-power. ZAP! ZOK! KAPOW!

Just another day in the life of this Dynamic Duo.

PS: The room is nowhere near complete, but I decided to break the “before and after” rule of blogging and show you a bit of progress. And it is definitely open for business. So you can come and visit now.

Today I went to the Logan Square Farmer’s Market and came home with lots of pretty goodies. (You can’t see the peonies, but those are my favorite.)

There’s only one thing to do with strawberries that fresh. So I pulled out Mom’s recipe book and lucky for me, I had everything I needed for some shortcake (you probably do too).

The dough comes together quickly. Then you can press the dough into a pan or use a biscuit cutter to make rounds. I tried stacking two little dough discs in a muffin tin for easy splitting, then topped with sugar.

They only needed to bake for about 15 minutes. Another benefit to this method.

Then I took a little sample shortcake outside with my pretty peony and my husband for a taste test.

It didn’t take very long to finish it off.

And it got a big ol’ “mmmmm” from this guy:

Strawberry Shortcake Recipe

2 1/2 cups flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

2/3 cup milk

1 egg

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients. Cut in butter. Whisk milk and egg then add to dry ingredients to form dough. Press into 8″ cake pan, or bake rounds on cookie sheet. Top with sugar. Bake 15-25 minutes depending on the pan you choose.

Top with strawberries (I didn’t add sugar, but that’s up to you!) and whipped cream.